New Delhi, September 25: In the absence of a global agreement on equity and burden sharing on carbon emissions, gaps between developed and developing nations would further widen, Vice President Hamid Ansari on Thursday said but maintained that India cannot be held responsible for climate change.
“Lack of such (based on equity) agreement would likely to cause the climate change negotiations to spill over to other multilateral, regional and bilateral negotiating platforms.
“This would further accentuate existing divisions such as North-South, East-West, developed-developing countries, etc,” Ansari said at the inaugural session of two-day “Global Summit on Sustainable Development and Climate Change” in New Delhi ahead of the Copenhagen summit on climate change in December.
Asserting that developing nations like India could not be held responsible for climate change, he compared the energy consumption of the other countries vis-a-vis India.
“In terms of basic energy consumption for two essential requirements of household electricity and transport, the per capita energy use in India was around 18 tons of oil-equivalent per person in the year 2005 when compared to Pakistan which was 41, for China 52, for Mexico 345, for Brazil 205 and the United States 1881 tons,” he said.
Ansari said India, despite having 17 per cent of the world population and a rapidly growing economy, has only 4 per cent of carbon emissions as compared to US and China which account for over 16 per cent each.
Similarly, in per-capita terms, country’s Greenhouse Gas emission of 1.1 ton/annum is minuscule when compared to over 20 tons of the US and in excess of 10 tons of most of the OECD countries, Ansari said.
India’s primary energy consumption growth rate was merely 3.7 per cent per year despite a GDP growth rate, until recently, of around 9 per cent, he said.
“This contrasts with the pattern seen in developed countries and even a few major developing countries where higher GDP growth has followed the traditional pattern of increased use of energy,” he said.
The Vice-President was also of the opinion that “pursuit of equity at the international level needs to be reflected at the national level” given that there is significant variation in emissions of various states within the country.
“As part of the national debate on climate change, we should discuss whether urban areas and heavily industrialised States that significantly contribute to emissions should have different financial and other responsibilities on climate change as compared to rural areas and economically less developed states,” he said.
Ansari also sought increased role of civil society to tackle the threat.
—Agencies